ENGLISH

Funeral Customs: Their Origin and Development

By Bertram S. Puckle

Book information

Publisher
Omnigraphics
Year
1990
ISBN
1558887504, 9781558887503
Language
english
Format
EPUB
Filesize
226 kB (231215 bytes)
Pages
283\0
Time added
2016-08-25 10:49:23
Social Sciences

Description

Funeral Customsby Bertram S. Puckle"A funeral is a ceremony marking a person's death. Funerary customs comprise the complex of beliefs and practices used by a culture to remember the dead, from the funeral itself, to various monuments, prayers, and rituals undertaken in their honor. These customs vary widely between cultures, and between religious affiliations within cultures. In some cultures the dead are venerated; this is commonly called ancestor worship. The word funeral comes from the Latin funus, which had a variety of meanings, including the corpse and the funerary rites themselves.Funeral rites are as old as the human race itself, as well as other hominids. For example, in the Shanidar cave in Iraq, Neanderthal skeletons have been discovered with a characteristic layer of pollen, which suggests that Neanderthals buried the dead with gifts of flowers. This has been interpreted as suggesting that Neanderthals believed in an afterlife, and in any case were aware of their own mortality and were capable of mourning."

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